Alfred North Whitehead Quotes - Page 12

Quotes about:

• Art heightens the sense of humanity. It gives an elation to feeling which is supernatural...A million sunsets will not spur us on towards civilization. It requires Art to evoke into consciousness the finite perfections which lie ready for human achievement.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Art, Lying, Sunset

  4 Copy quote

• In its solitariness the spirit asks, What, in the way of value, is the attainment of life? And it can find no such value till it has merged its individual claim with that of the objective universe. Religion is world-loyalty.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Loyalty, World, Way

  Alfred North Whitehead (2011). “Religion in the Making”, p.49, Cambridge University Press

  4 Copy quote

• It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty in our present society .

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Passionate, Unions, Facts

  Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• We think of the number "five" as applying to appropriate groups of any entities whatsoever - to five fishes, five children, five apples, five days... We are merely thinking of those relationships between those two groups which are entirely independent of the individual essences of any of the members of either group. This is a very remarkable feat of abstraction; and it must have taken ages for the human race to rise to it

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Children, Taken, Independent

  7 Copy quote

• What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Hands, Ideas, Secret

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still omitted the quality of the quality.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Lying, Quality, Facts

  Alfred North Whitehead (2011). “Religion in the Making”, p.68, Cambridge University Press

  4 Copy quote

• "One and one make two" assumes that the changes in the shift of circumstance are unimportant. But it is impossible for us to analyze this notion of unimportant change.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Change, Math, Two

  Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.62, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Destiny, Thinking, Fog

  Alfred North Whitehead (1954). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”

  8 Copy quote

• The point of mathematics is that in it we have always got rid of the particular instance, and even of any particular sorts of entities. So that for example, no mathematical truths apply merely to fish, or merely to stones, or merely to colours. So long as you are dealing with pure mathematics, you are in the realm of complete and absolute abstraction. . . . Mathematics is thought moving in the sphere of complete abstraction from any particular instance of what it is talking about.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Moving, Science, Talking

  1925 Science And the Modern World.

  4 Copy quote

• The main importance of Francis Bacon's influence does not lie in any peculiar theory of inductive reasoning which he happened to express, but in the revolt against second-hand information of which he was a leader.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Lying, Hands, Leader

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• The many become one and are increased by one.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Alfred North Whitehead (2009). “Mencari Tuhan Sepanjang Zaman: Dari Agama-Kesukuan Hingga Agama-Universal”, p.93, Mizan Pustaka

  4 Copy quote

• Nature, even in the act of satisfying anticipation, often provides a surprise.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Nature, Anticipation, Surprise

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.126, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• It is natural to think that an abstract science cannot be of much importance in affairs of human life, because it has omitted from its consideration everything of real interest.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Real, Thinking, Affair

  Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.3, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

  4 Copy quote

• You may not divide the seamless coat of learning.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Coats, May, Divides

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.11, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Our habitual experience is a complex of failure and success in the enterprise of interpretation. If we desire a record of uninterpreted experience, we must ask a stone to record its autobiography.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Desire, Records, Stones

  Alfred North Whitehead (2010). “Process and Reality”, p.15, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• The English never abolish anything. They put it in cold storage.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Cold, Storage, Abolish

  Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.305, David R. Godine Publisher

  7 Copy quote

• Shakespeare wrote better poetry for not knowing too much; Milton, I think, knew too much finally for the good of his poetry.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Thinking, Knowing, Too Much

  Statement on November 11, 1947. "Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead". Book by Alfred North Whitehead. Chapter 43,, 1954.

  5 Copy quote

• A culture is in its finest flower before it begins to analyze itself.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Flower, Culture, Finest

  Alfred North Whitehead (1954). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”

  4 Copy quote

• I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which is named after him. That would be claiming too much. But it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming . . . and a little mad.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Success, Cutting, Math

  Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

• A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it, that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied, he is content.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Writing, Men, Gains

  Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.64, David R. Godine Publisher

  4 Copy quote

• In every age of well-marked transition, there is the pattern of habitual dumb practice and emotion which is passing and there is oncoming a new complex of habit.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Change, Practice, Dumb

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operations of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish. It is in a way the most civilised of all the cardinals, and its use is only forced on us by the needs of cultivated modes of thought.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Zero, Needs, Use

  Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.43, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

  4 Copy quote

• Youth is life as yet unblemished by much tragedy, but hardly by TV.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Tragedy, Tvs, Youth

  4 Copy quote

• We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition to thinking of it in generalities.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Past, Thinking, Details

  Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.20, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Men, Extravagance, Safe

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

Page 12 of 14

First

← Prev

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin